Mississippi

Mississippi is a US state located in the American South, with its capital at Jackson. The state was admitted to the union on 10 December 1817 after being ceded by France following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and its capital of Jackson (named for war hero Andrew Jackson) was built in 1821. Most settlements and plantations were built along the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, as much of the state consisted of forest before the American Civil War. Slavery was legal in Mississippi until the end of the war in 1865, leading to African-Americans making up the majority of the population until the 1930s. 400,000 rural African-Americans moved to northern and midwestern cities during the first half of the 20th century to find work, and the state began to have a working-class white majority. Segregation existed until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, and the state still maintains its Confederate legacy in some ways; it was not until 2013 that a high school prom in the state was desegregated, and the flag still displays the Confederate battle flag. In 2015, the state had a population of 2,922,333 people.